Education reform

Gove battles the blob

The advantages and drawbacks of Michael Gove’s zeal

SCHOOL reform is rarely a peaceful process, but the political tempest that broke out in England this week was exceptional. On February 1st it emerged that Lady Morgan, a Labour peer and former adviser to Tony Blair, would not be reappointed as chairman of Ofsted, the schools inspectorate. She accused Michael Gove, the education secretary, of politicising the post as part of a broader Conservative campaign to place more of the party’s supporters into state quangos.

Mr Gove says he simply wants “a fresh pair of eyes” in the role. Others, including the Conservatives’ Liberal Democrat coalition partners, deemed the ousting more partisan than practical. Into the fracas stepped Sir David Bell, a former chief civil servant in Mr Gove’s department, who warned that his old boss was too reliant on “yes-men” and cheerleaders.

Unhappily, the row coincides with a renewed push to invigorate academic standards in schools. In a speech on February 3rd, Mr Gove pledged to break down a “Berlin Wall” between state and private schools. He suggested that state pupils should sit the Common Entrance test, used by independent schools to select their intake at age 13, or use the international PISA tests, to see how their pupils are faring in comparison with other countries.

Two sides of the Goveite approach are manifest in these events. One is a focus on raising standards and ambitions. To this end, Mr Gove has emphasised core academic subjects, faced down unions and dismissed those who excuse underperformance as “the blob” (an unflattering reference to creatures in a 1950s horror film). The other, less laudable, aspect is partisanship, which is deepening at Westminster as the thin glue binding the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition dissolves in the run-up to the 2015 election.

On academic expectations, the education secretary has a point. England’s curriculum, weighted towards GCSE tests at 16, entails little monitoring of what pupils learn between 11 and those exams (intermediate tests were abolished by Labour in 2008, albeit with Tory encouragement). Further proposals, such as a longer school day, are intended to expose state-school pupils to the kind of extra-curricular activities offered in private schools.

Yet the charge of tribalism risks doing damage. The coalition’s reforms, which have given schools more autonomy, built on progress made by Labour. That has helped persuade teachers and parents that the changes are not just a right-wing obsession. A study carried out by McKinsey, a consultancy, emphasises the importance of “continuity in the reform process and development”—in plain English, not veering between one approach and another depending on who rules the political roost. That sense of common purpose is threatened if reformers outside the governing clan feel marginalised or ignored.

Ideological drive has emboldened Mr Gove to take on vested interests among teachers, bureaucrats and educational theorists. But starting factional wars is a lot easier than ending them. England’s school reforms are not yet firmly embedded or fully accepted. Finessing that is a more urgent task than a struggle for party prominence—and a more worthwhile one.